Tremor, ‘butter fingers & more manual dexterity issues.

Back when I was in my second year of college ( sounds like a long time ago but feels like yesterday!) I mentioned to a fellow classmate in Biology that I have MS, his response? How come you're not shaking! I still don't really understand what he meant but the obvious symptom that did come to mind was that of the 'tremors'.

On first thought tremor just means a bit of shaking somewhere literally right? But as I'm sure you'd know by now things are never so simple with anything related to multiple sclerosis. Tremors aren't the only reason there may be a bit of 'shaking' occuring but the first and main one I reckon would be the tremors.

So, a tremor would be described as a trembling or shaking movement that can't be controlled in the affected muscle. Usually in a rhythmic shaking either fine small movements or larger more explicit ones. This would be due to a damaged nerve(s) somewhere along the neurological pathway to the muscle that is concerned. 

Furthermore, there are two types of these tremors. An intention tremor where an MSer is intending to do something like switch a light on and the tremor worsening as the hand gets closer to the object. Postural tremor, where the muscles are trying to hold part of the body still against the force of gravity and just has the odd wiggle because of the main reason of most symptoms, the short circuit reaction.

Ataxia is a term for a group of disorders that affect co-ordination, balance and speech thus the tremor, along with the tremors and the previous loss of sensationor any other related symptoms, this leaves an MSer with the infamous butter finger trait, so it would make sense if things don't last long in our hands, we miss the hand when reaching for a handshake, turning a page or untangling your headphones becoming a bit like an Olympic sport!

With me it just happened to occur in its more severe state ( post relapse) at the ending of winter, so I had a lot of people telling me to bring a pair of gloves, or wear extra clothing next time I left the house! But when I did have these tremors it was difficult to hold the phone straight or bring a cup of tea to the table, it almost frightened a few folk around me resulting in them grabbing my hand to hold it straight, which reminded me of something that's done whenever there is a mouse, spider or lizard ( yes in India and so these are common household guests! Though a stick or brush is used!) and a rush movement to grab them or hit them is usually the typical response now displayed when my hand couldn't stop dancing around!

These two videos below showing examples of the tremors and their effects:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dmZMK6FNps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01ojuCnMonM